Faizabad LS seat: Those who brought 'Ram' to Ayodhya may not return with huge margin

This is not to say that the temple, built on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22, doesn’t evoke pride and jubilation among locals of Ayodhya and other parts of Faizabad. It certainly does and there is no denying that particularly among the Hindus of Ayodhya town the consecration of the temple remains among the topmost motivations to re-elect BJP candidate Lallu Singh, the Faizabad MP since 2014, for a third term.

Yet, what is equally inescapable across this largely rural and economically backward constituency in UP’s Awadh region is a growing fatigue with the electoral cacophony around the Ram Mandir and a yearning for political focus to now shift to resolving the electorate’s daily battles against spiralling prices, unemployment, social inequity and communal strife.

The Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency goes to polls on May 20, under phase 5 of the national elections. The results will be announced on June 4.

Enough politics around temple

The Samajwadi Party, which is contesting the current polls in alliance with the Congress party, has fielded its prominent Dalit leader and nine-term MLA Audhesh Prasad against Singh in Faizabad. The SP’s decision of breaking the convention of fielding Dalits only on constituencies reserved for the community is evidently aimed at exploiting this faultline between the saffron party’s Hindutva narrative and the INDIA bloc’s plank of socio-economic justice.

Besides Prasad in Faizabad, the SP has also fielded another Dalit candidate, Ram Bhual Nishad, from the adjoining general seat of Sultanpur against BJP’s Maneka Gandhi.

Nandu Gupta, whose shop is located just off the Jain Mandir Chauraha, a stone’s throw away from one of the entrances to the temple complex, tells this reporter that he would “vote for Prasad”. Gupta’s loud proclamation of support for the SP candidate, timidly backed by a few other shopkeepers gathered nearby, comes as surprise given that he sells Jai Shri Ram, Ram Mandir and Ayodhya Dham flags, banners, posters and stoles and even has a BJP flag outside his shop.

“Ram par bahut rajneeti ho gayi, Mandir ke mudde par kitne chunav ho gaye... ab ban gaya naa, ab toh hamari baat honi chahiye (Enough politics has been played over Ram; many elections have been fought over the Mandir issue too... now that the temple has been constructed, the discourse should be on people’s issues),” Gupta told The Federal. He added that the spike in business which Ayodhya’s shopkeepers witnessed in the two months following the temple’s inauguration has now begun to wane and the temple has led to “new challenges”.

Challenges after Ram temple construction

“Everything is in a mess now. The administration has put so many restrictions on movement that the number of pilgrims has continued to fall steadily. Most Aastha trains (special trains started by the Union government to ferry pilgrims to Ayodhya) as well as flights that were launched for Ayodhya have stopped operations; there are only three regular flights to Ayodhya now. Obviously business has been hit but the bigger cause of worry is that even pilgrims from Faizabad and around have reduced. Every few days there is some VVIP visiting the temple and everything comes to a halt,” Gupta claims.

Another shopkeeper who requested anonymity said, “The most important festival in Ayodhya is Ram Navmi and there is a big mela (fair) during that time for which Ram devotees from all nearby districts come. Before the temple was built, shopkeepers used to earn the equivalent of their two to three months worth of income during that one week of the mela but this time, it was a flop show. Only politicians and VVIPs came while restrictions were imposed on common public. Every shopkeeper suffered huge losses.”

Suman Gupta, editor of Jan Morcha, a highly regarded Hindi daily across Faizabad, told The Federal that though the opening of the Ram Mandir would “definitely help the BJP electorally, it may sound paradoxical but those gains will not be huge in Faizabad”.

“While there is happiness over the temple being finally constructed, the way the construction of the complex, the landscaping of the areas around it and the redevelopment of the city were all carried out has left many locals unhappy. Poor compensation or delay in payment of compensation continues to be a grouse with people who lost their homes and shops and there is a new fear now that further expansions of the Ram Path and other roads would lead to a second wave of destruction of homes and shops. These are concerns that no one in the state administration is addressing adequately; instead there have been several incidents of people being intimidated by the police and local administration for protesting on these issues,” Suman says.

The senior journalist, however, insists that the BJP would “not suffer a huge electoral loss in Ayodhya because its Hindutva pitch still resonates with the people here, more so since the temple’s consecration”. Shop owners who are presently expressing discontent would, Suman says, “eventually vote for Lallu Singh because they know that for their day-to-day issues like electricity, water supply and civic amenities, they still have to go to a BJP-led administration, be it at the local corporation level or the state government’s level”.

Anger against BJP

“The real contest in Faizabad is not in the Ayodhya assembly segment but in the other four assembly constituencies of Dariyabad, Rudauli, Milkipur and Bikapur. If you travel around these segments, the public anger against the BJP is so high that for a moment you may wonder whether you are still in the same constituency,” Suman adds. She couldn’t have been more correct in her assessment.

A bumpy 30-minute drive out of Ayodhya city is Mehdauna village, in Faizabad’s Milkipur assembly segment, the stronghold of Audhesh Prasad. A group of girls, most of them in their early 20s and all of them Hindus, returning from a youth workshop tell this reporter, “what good is the Ram Mandir to us... all of us have done our graduation and none of us have a job; should we go and ask for work in the temple”.

No jobs

Malti Chaurasia, one of the girls from the group, tells The Federal, “I voted for the BJP in the 2022 assembly elections because everyone in my family supports the BJP but this time all of us are going to vote for the SP candidate. My father is a sugarcane farmer with a small landholding and a huge debt to pay. I have four siblings and three of us have done our graduation but now there is no job”.

Over the past two years, Malti had prepared for the UP Lekhpal exam as well as the RO ARO exam but both were cancelled at the last minute because the examination papers were “leaked”.

“To prepare for both those exams, my father borrowed nearly a lakh so I could take tuitions; that money has been wasted but he will have to repay the debt. My elder brother has done MSc but he now works as a security guard in Lucknow earning just ₹4,000 a month. How long can we go on like this... we need a government that will give jobs,” Malti said. Her friend, Deepshikha, a resident of Barun block in Milkipur who has also been “job hunting for two years” after completing her BCom degree, added that the BJP thinks “giving 5 kg ration is enough to get votes so why should it give jobs that will make people self-reliant”.

Caste affliations

If crippling unemployment and the increasing debt burden on their families have put Malti and Deepshikha off the BJP, it is the candidature of Prasad – a Dalit from the Pasi caste that has motivated Bikapur resident Ram Swaroop, a tea stall owner in Sita Kund area, to vote for the SP.

Swaroop said he had always been a BJP supporter and even did “prachaar” (campaigning) for Lallu Singh in the last two Lok Sabha polls but he would vote for the SP’s Prasad this time because the candidate is from “hamari biradari (our caste)”. Swaroop believes SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had taken a “brave step” by fielding a Pasi Dalit from a general seat and that the Faizabad election on May 20 may be “the only chance we will ever get to send a Dalit to Lok Sabha from Ayodhya”.

Swaroop’s consideration for changing his electoral allegiance finds resonance across the Dalit pockets of Milkipur, Bikapur and Dariyabad. Voters this reporter met in the Rudauli assembly segment, however, largely appeared committed to the BJP, claiming “Modi and Yogi (Adityanath) were doing a great job” and that “those who ended the centuries-long wait for Ram Mandir deserve to rule India”.

Yet, in a muddled election campaign that is devoid of any visible wave in favour of the BJP or its rivals of the INDIA bloc, consideration of caste affiliations and the challenges in citizens’ daily lives have evidently returned to the vanguard, arguably, dulling at least some of the BJP’s Hindutva noise. By fielding a Dalit in an unreserved constituency to bolster its social justice narrative, the SP is obviously attempting a caste-based polarisation, backed with its ally, the Congress’s equally strident push for socio-economic justice, to counter the BJP’s religious polarisation at the hustings.

SP's weak outreach

Suman Gupta felt Prasad’s candidature has “put the BJP in a real fix” in Faizabad even though the SP’s poll outreach is “much weaker” compared to that of its principal rival and that this may eventually cost the party dearly.

“The Faizabad constituency has nearly four lakh Dalit voters and the unprecedented candidature of a Dalit from this seat will naturally consolidate a large chunk of the community behind Prasad. To this, you can add the Yadavs and the Muslims who constitute a sizeable part of Faizabad’s electorate and are committed supporters of the SP as well as voters, irrespective of their caste, who are angry on issues of rising prices of essential commodities, growing joblessness or even lopsided development of Faizabad where all projects are centred around Ayodhya while the remaining assembly segments get nothing," said the Jan Morcha editor.

Suman, however, added a cautionary note that any seasoned scribe with an ear to the ground would in an election: "the problem with Prasad’s campaign, though, is his inability to mobilise this whole chunk of voters effectively while the BJP has put in everything it has to retain the seat.”.